


Reciprocity

by orphan_account



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 22:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5945542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Hera was lost, in a manner of speaking, they found her. Eiffel might not be so lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reciprocity

**Author's Note:**

> So you know, I was just thinking about Hera and Eiffel again. And how she calls him her best friend. And how he's probably been floating cold and alone in the depths of space if he's even still alive.

Hera thought: _Come back. Please. Come back._

She broadcast a more sensible message.

_“Officer Eiffel, this is the U.S.S. Hephaestus Station. Please respond.”_

Just that. Every hour, on the hour, per Minkowski’s unnecessary command.

_“Officer Eiffel, this is the U.S.S. Hephaestus Station. Please respond. If you receive this message, please respond by whatever means possible.”_

She thought, _Please,_ __come_ back. _

Hera had come back. And there was something she hadn’t told anyone: she remembered being dead. Rather, logs of the station’s behavior while she was offline were available to her. She didn’t know where her desire to look had come from, other than a peculiar morbid streak that was part of what got her this assignment to begin with. She examined them, anyway. She - it - her ghost, the void she’d left behind - No. The Hephaestus station had been quite incompetent.

And yet, during that time, something stood out to her. Even as systems failed and alarms wailed, Officer Eiffel slammed his palm onto the comms desk one more time. He winced and drew his hand back from the metal, and as he clutched it to his chest, he muttered to the recording equipment. 

_“C’mon, baby. Don’t leave me hangin’. I know you’re in there, just… come back to me.”_

He had missed her when she was gone. He hadn’t missed an operational vessel, or a responsive lackey. He had missed her. In her data banks, the definition of that was clear: “to notice the loss or absence of,” to miss someone. Simple enough, except there was more to it than words. The concept clawed at something in the personality matrix.

One second to go before the hour. Someone might have noticed the discrepancy; she didn’t care.

_“Officer Eiffel, this is the U.S.S. Hephaestus Station. Please respond.”_

They fought for her. All of them. Okay, all of them, except Hilbert. He’d acted mainly to save his own sorry butt. But that was beside the point. What were they doing for Eiffel? What was she doing for him?

The same thing he’d done for her. Reaching out. Calling out. But when he’d done it for her, the truth was, there hadn’t been anyone around to answer. She'd been so much crumbling circuitry, carefully wrapped in Minkowski's quarters.   
  
She just didn’t know. He could have been dead. He had to be; it just wasn't possible for a human to stay alive for any length of time under the conditions Eiffel had departed with. But she didn’t know for sure. He wasn't on her sensors anymore, so maybe, he was out there, out of range somewhere. Was she calling out to no one?

There had to be more she could do; actions and consequence and meaningful motions. Out of everyone on the ship, no matter what certain scientists thought, she was the smartest. Her brain had the most power, and for that reason it was her job to keep the station together. No one ever said that didn't include the crew - a part of any functioning outpost - and so, she had the same responsibility to Eiffel as she did to the engines and filtration system. There had to be a solution, and she had to be the one properly equip to find it.

Yet the station’s engines barely kept them away from the star, and he must have been so far away. If he was even still alive. What could she do?

It was five seconds past the hour.

_“Officer Eiffel, this is - this is Hera. If you can hear this, just… hold on. We’ll bring you back.”_


End file.
